28 A R.ePOR. TeR. AT LAR.Ge T HE attack was to jump off at nine in the Inorning. The oh- jective of Inv infan;ry regiment was a long, steep ridge that stood like a door at the head of the valley we occu- pied. The pattern of attack was fa- Iniliar and orthodox: first an hour of dive-bombing to soften the objective, then a half hour of artillery, and finally the infantry to do the dirty work. It was a pattern that had been followed ever since we had landed in Italy. Ev- eryone was getting tired of it. ()ur reg- iment had fought through Sicily and all the war up from Salerno, and the Inen were particularly tired of walk- ing. They were not tired of fighting, if fighting meant that they would get home sooner, but they were very weary of long night marches and then hours of fancy mountain climbing in the face of enemy fire. This struck them as a hell of a way to fight a war that was supposed to be so mechanized and mo- torized, and they frequently said so. My job in this operation was going to be with the headquarters of one of the attackIng battalions. I was now on duty at regi- mental headquarters, which was in a one-room farmhouse by the side of a dirt road, and the plan was for me to join the battalion as it marched past the regi- mental command post during the night on its way to the jump-off point. The hattalion was scheduled to come by at two in the morning, and someone was supposed to wake me. Noone did. Vlhen the guard was changed at midnight, the old guard forgot to tell the new guard. At four-thirty the regimental C.P. moved out, leav- ing me behind. I was asleep in a hay- stack and they could have moved the whole Fifth Army without Iny hearing them. f\ horse nihbling at the hay was what finally woke me. It was six 0' clock. There was no one around the place when I slid out of the hay, and the road was deserted. It was just getting light. :Fog lay like chalk over the valley, twist- ing at the bottom as it began to rise. rrhe air was cold and damp. The only Ii ving thing in sight seelned to be the hurse, and he was no bargain. I dressed, put on my helmet and pistol belt, then went up to the farmhouse and looked in. There was nothing inside but gut- tered candles torn and empty K-ration boxes, and piles of straw on which the officers had slept. I returned to the l1aystack and made up my bedding roll. Most of the line troops carried only a SEARCH FOR A ßA TTLE raincoat and half a blanket. .L.\t night they wrapped the half blanket around their head and shoulders, put the raIn- coat over that, and lay on the ground. I had a whole blanket and a shelter half, a combination which, by comparison, was equal to an inner-spring mattress. .Lr\fter making up the roll, I ate a bar of 1(-ration chocolate. As the fog lifted, it revealed the mountains along the valley. At the end of the valley was the ridge we were going to take, loom- ing black and forbidding through the mist. I finished the chocolate, slung the bedding roll over one shoulder, and started along the road toward th e fron t. T HERE was no activity at all on the road, which seemed strange, con- sidering that an attack was coming off. The valley was completely quiet. 'I'here were not even the ordinary morning-in- the-country noises. I walked for about a mile without seeing anyone and then passed an artillery battery dug in beside the road. The guns were camouflaged with nets. The men sat beside them, eating out of C-ration cans. No one looked up as I passed. Ahead of me, growing larger, was the high ridge. Be.fore it were a few small hills. Be- tween these hills and the ridge was another, smaller valley, running at right angles to the one I was following. Our men would have to cross it under fire. It was seven o'clock now, and there was still 'no sound of gunfire. I had gone half a mile past the ar- tillery when I heard a car behind me. A jeep was coming up the road It stopped when I thumbed it. A colo- nel was sitting next to the driver, and he said, "Hop in." I climbed into the back and sat on my bedding roll. "We're going to the regimental C.P .," the colonel said. That suited me; I could find out there where my battalion was. The colonel must have been im- portant, because the driver, a staff ser- geant, drove yery carefully, as if he _ r, . 0" '. _ ," . . \ ' { t-' o. c ... . , "fJ{. ' .1 <" o .; -. ''' ':' â- -.\... ':ï:i. "" - \ ,., .,'-' .. , .{ 'i .,.:>i\, ' " , . ' '. . Î!' . ,. r . .,.. i " ., . .,\:"; é:"" ,,' Vr\' - '4. ;< f'- -:. .. -. "..;,'? 'J:' r '} ,,, . . .. ,...,.., ... ' ..,r :"....'1 :' - J --, -:. ,- -,-- -;- - ,<!:: ;:}..:: \ - Wl1-- " ";': I\-JI\luL;,\W i ':. ,,'u '. . \J... . ,...\ t, r "'-..i.,,:: ""!"'.w ..,: ': '..: =';l.. .. . were driving a sedan instead of a jeep. 'The road was full of holes, and he actu- ally went into second for some of them, which is a rare thing to do with a jeep. I kept my eye out for planes. The ceiling was still very low, but you never could tell. The road curved to the right, when we came to the first of the littJe hills, and then headed straight for the ridge. The colonel told the driver to slow down. We caught up to a young lieu- tenant walking along the road, and the colonel leaned out and asked him where the regimental C.P. was. "Damned if I know," the lieutenant said. He needed a shave and looked tired. "\\l ell, what outfit are you?" the colonel asked. "Support battalion," the lieutenant said. He turned off the road and started across a field toward some vehicles parked under a tree. The colonel looked as though he were going to call him back, but finally he ordered the driver to go ahead. A hundred yards beyond, we came to a crossroads, and there was an M.P. here. The colonel shouted his questIon about the regimental C.P. at him and the M.P. waved us to the left. \Ve took the road he had indicated, but it soon turned in to a cow path and finally petered out altogether in front of an old farmhouse. Another M.P. was standing there, scratching his head. \Ve stopped beside him and the colonel asked directions again. The M. P. kept scratch- ing hIS head, but he pointed across a field to a wooded hill. The driver started off again. The M.P. called, "Hey!" "T e stopped, and the M.P. said mildly, "You better be careful crossing that field. It's supposed to be mined." None of us said anything for a moment; then the colo- nel sighed and told the driver to go ahead. The driver went slowly across the field, following what he probably hoped were wheel tracks. I shifted around so that I was sitting on the side of the jeep with my feet on the back seat. I wondered briefly whether I shouldn't sit on my helmet, but decided that it wasn't really necessary. \\l e didn't hit any mines, but we thought about them and it seemed like a long time before we got across that field. There was a dirt road on the other side and we fol- lowed Ìt as we ascended the hill. Half- way up the hill we reached the C.P., which was in a grove of trees. I saw the regimental commander and his execu- tive officer standing in a large exca- vation; the C.O. was talking over a telephone. The drivers and other head-